


Looking For Directions

by Mama_Comic



Series: The Four Winds [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, BittyBones, Cardinal Directions, Lonliness, Not Everyone Gets a Happy Ending, Prequel, Thoughts of Suicide, Trauma, Verbal Abuse, bitty - Freeform, everyones an asshole, seriously this is gonna be sad, surface - Freeform, undertale - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:00:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22837435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mama_Comic/pseuds/Mama_Comic
Summary: He didn’t know who he was, why he existed or what life had in store for him. He had hoped to get a good start, but that didn’t seem to be in the Cards for him.
Series: The Four Winds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641754
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Looking For Directions

**Author's Note:**

> Oh boy... here we go.

He.. had always been different. Taller, calmer..more level headed than his Sabre ‘siblings’. He’d never cared much for trivial things like they did, he didn’t care if his clothes were black or his teeth kept sharp. That was them. He.. he was always different. From the moment he first opened his eyes. 

He’d awoken alone. The ceiling above him was painted a creamy, pale white, but the walls on all sides of him were inky black. When he sat up, looking at his own hands for the very first time, he felt only confusion. He didn’t know who he was yet. Who he would become. 

A soft clicking on the window caught his attention and he looked towards the clear glass to the outside world; there sat a red.. bird. He wasn’t sure how he knew what a bird was, but he just.. knew. His movements were slow as he stood up, staggering slightly before he was able to balance himself and take in his surroundings.

He could hear.. voices. Soft murmurs coming from somewhere else, but they were growing louder. He turned to face a large opening.. a door..?.. as two monsters came through.

“It's the first we have managed to create this way. It should be..”

Upon seeing him awake, the monster paused and stared at him for a moment before coming closer, reaching towards him as if to touch.

“Hm..already awake….”

The other monster leaned down to look at him more closely, and his arms drew closer to his bare chest to protect.. something. Why did he feel the need to protect his chest?..

“It’s still a bitty? Even though it was made from..”

“Yes. A Sabre bitty, as we’d hoped.. it looks bigger than the others though.. maybe we used too much.”

Both monsters leaned away from him. The bird at the window pecked at the glass again, drawing the attention of one of the monsters, who headed over to look at it closely before the winged animal flew away.

“Cardinals are all over this time of year..”

Cardinal… he liked the sound of that. A bitty. He was a bitty, they said…?

“Yeah.. so what do we do with it now? It was a success. We can make them this way. Maybe even new types.”

“We can’t sell him. Can we?”

“..why not?”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

He’d been placed in a glass box, onto a large shelving unit covered in similar glass boxes. Each held someone like him. He still didn’t know who ‘ _ he’ _ was, but..

The bitty startled as the lid of his box was opened, and something was dropped in. At first he thought it was food, but.. closer inspection quickly revealed that it was another bitty. Someone like him. But.. much smaller.. 

“...hello?”

His voice.. he didn’t use his voice much. He had no reason to, nobody to  _ talk  _ to. It almost hurt to speak. The other bitty slowly stood. They were vastly different, in colors as well as size. The outfit the monsters had put him in consisted of blacks and greys, but this monster wore blues and whites.

“Hello!”

The sudden loud noise startled a low grunt from the bitty, and he took a single step back.

“My Name Is Blue!”

His name? This bitty had a name? Where did he get that? What.. was that?

“....a.. a ‘name’?”

“You Know! What They Call You! You Have To Have A Name Before Tomorrow! They Didn’t Give You One?”

The bitty slowly shook his head, unease curling in his gut, curdling into a nervous anxiety that set him on edge. Why is this..Blue…so different from him?

“I.. don’t.. know what a name is.”

Blue paused, looking a bit closer at the bitty, then smiled even wider than before.

“Well, What’s your favorite word!”

That made him think. He knew a lot of words now. Bird, Knife, Tank, Food, Dry, Skeleton… Cardinal. 

“....Cardinal. I… like the word Cardinal.”

Blue was practically bouncing on his heels, nodding in an excitement the other bitty didn’t understand.

“Then Your Name Can Be Cardinal!”

He.. Cardinal..slowly said the name aloud, testing how it rolled off his tongue, how the word felt.. and found he rather liked it. He was.. Cardinal. A bitty.

Hours rolled by. They both settled in, though Cardinal stuck to his little pile of fabric scraps he had shoved into a corner to sleep on, and Blue.. well, Blue always seemed to be in motion. Pacing, bouncing, jabbering on about this or that..

“Blue.. what happens tomorrow?”

Blue perked up hearing his name, pausing from his thirtieth lap around his half of the tank.

“What Do You Mean?”

Cardinal sighed, picking at the hem of the simple black and grey outfit he’d been given.

“I mean.. you.. earlier you said I had to name a name by tomorrow. Why? What happens tomorrow?”

Blue gasped aloud, his blue eyes suddenly gaining twin stars.

“YOU DON'T KNOW?! Tomorrow Is Adoption Day!! We May Meet Our Humans!!”

Cardinal wasn’t sure what face he made, but it must not have been a good one. Blue’s expression visibly wilted, and he practically deflated, brows furrowing together as he tilted his head.

“Don’t.. You  _ Want _ To Meet Your Human?”

Humans.. Cardinal had heard the other bitties, in other tanks, talk about..humans. A few of the others, though he’d never seen them up close, sported false limbs or damage because of humans. The idea of meeting one didn’t really appeal. From what Cardinal has heard so far, they were selfish, greedy things that didn’t care about anyone but themselves. 

“...No. I..don't think I do.”

Blue frowned, and looked as if he wanted to say something more, but seemed to think better of it, and fell silent. 

“..I Guess Maybe Not Everyone Wants A Family.”

Cardinal looked back over at the other bitty. A.. family?

“...Family? What do you mean?”

Blue sat down, legs crossed as he looked up out of the tank. Cardinal hadn’t seen Blue look this.. wistful, before. Almost like he was able to see the perfect vision laid out before him.

“..Someone Who Loves You. Someone Meant For You, And Only You. Someone To Love And Receive Love From.. Someone...Someone Special. I Bet My Human Will Find Me Tomorrow. Then We Will Go Home, And It’ll Be Perfect..”

Someone who loves you.. Cardinal looked away. He had.. a bad feeling. He couldn’t put it into words. He couldn’t have known what would come next, but he had a bad feeling about.. humans.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Cardinal was woken by the tank being taken off its shelf for the first time since he’d been placed inside. He scrambled to stand, before the sudden placement of the glass box caused him to lurch forward and fall again. He looked around for Blue, and spotted him just in time for the much smaller bitty to be removed from the tank. Something in his chest clenched painfully, and Cardinal gave a strangled noise of alarm.

“Blue?!”

Cardinal squinted against a light that was suddenly shone on him through the glass, and looked over. He relaxed, only by a fraction, when he saw the familiar figure of the yellow rabbit monster from when he first woke up.

“What’s going on?”

The light was clicked off, and the bunny smiled at him.

“The shop opens soon! Do you have a name you want put on your tag?”

He hesitated. He didn’t really want to tell this monster he’d decided on a name. It felt too personal. It felt.. something felt wrong about this. 

“...No, I.. didn’t pick one.”

“Thats okay! I’m sure once your adopted you’ll get a lovely new name!”

Something was written on the white tag in the corner of the otherwise transparent barrier between him and the rest of the new room the tank had been placed in, and then the bunny monster left. Slowly, Cardinal approached the wall of the tank, and looked around. The area was.. bright, and colorful. He could see dozens of bitties clearly, in pens and on soft looking pillows..including Blue. Cardinal saw his friend just across the room, looking out an even larger barrier to.. somewhere else. 

Slowly, Cardinal stepped back, then sat down to wait. What exactly he was waiting for, he wasn’t sure, but.. he didn’t have much of a choice. He didn’t understand why they had taken Blue but not him, or why they hadn’t moved him out instead. 

Cardinal snapped awake not long later, unaware he’d even fallen asleep, to a happy little ‘ _ ding!’ _ sound somewhere in the larger room… a human. Two humans, actually, one much smaller than the other. Cardinal slowly stood, approaching the glass barrier between them and himself, and placed his hand on the cold surface. 

He watched the humans wander amongst the bitties, watched them pick up some and ignore others. Watched the process repeat as more humans filtered in and out of the room. He found himself looking at Blue every now and then, anxious. Cardinal wanted to ask the bunny monster why he hadn’t been taken from the tank like Blue, but she hadn’t left the big table on the other side of the room since the humans had started coming in and out. Almost all of them stopped to talk to her, and almost all of them left the room holding a bitty. Sometimes multiple bitties. But not a single human looked his way.

Cardinal had almost fallen asleep again, when he noticed Blue was eagerly speaking to one of the much smaller humans. He snapped awake, hurrying to stand. 

“Blue?..”

Cardinal knew the other bitty couldn’t hear him, but that didn’t matter to him. The human picked the tiny bitty up, and almost proudly showed Blue to the larger human that had accompanied them. Cardinal knew this probably meant Blue had found his.. what had he said? Family? But.. part of him didn’t want the bitty to leave. If Blue stayed, he’d go back into the tank with Cardinal that night. There were still things he wanted to know. 

“Blue!”

Being alone in the tank hadn’t bothered him just a few minutes ago? Why was.. why was he panicking? Shouldn’t he be happy for him? This was what Blue had wanted. The two humans took the Baby Blue to the table where the bunny monster was stationed. Blue didn’t even look towards Cardinal as he was toted out of the room by the tiny human.

Slowly, Cardinal sat back down, refusing to let the tears fall that had welled up in his eyes. He hadn’t felt lonely before. He hadn’t had a reason to, until Blue had been placed into the tank he’d been alone.He was alone again.. but now he knew what it was like to have someone else to talk to. The idea of facing the night’s darkness alone again suddenly terrified him.

Cardinal was so caught up in his thoughts he didn’t see the human approach. But he certainly noticed when they tapped on the glass of his tank. He jerked, startled, then slowly looked up at the face that was staring back at him. A human with pale blue eyes, and long black hair.

“Hello there.”

Something in her voice set off alarm bells in Cardinal’s mind. Something just… wasn’t  _ right _ . But he couldn’t just ignore her, or pretend he was still asleep.

“..hello.”

The human woman moved very suddenly, opening the top of his tank and wrapping her hand tight around him. He stayed perfectly still, unsure what else to do as he was practically examined by the woman. She moved his arms, tilted his head back, bent his legs… it was odd, he hadn’t seen humans do this to any of the others or Blue. When she seemed satisfied, she started towards the table with the bunny monster without another word.

“Um.. My name is-“

“Shh, there will be time for all that later. I’m running late.”

Cardinals mouth closed with a quiet click, and the white diamonds that made up his eyes drifted to the yellow rabbit monster, who was having the woman sign papers. Cardinal tried to see what she was writing, but they were moving too quick for him to keep up with. After just a minute or two, the yellow rabbit clapped her furred paws together excitedly.

“I’m so happy to see him find a family this quickly! I’m sure you two will get along wonderfully!”

The woman gave a terse nod and turned away, carrying Cardinal away from the only place he’d ever known and into a whole new world.

**Author's Note:**

> Psst, join me on discord! https://discord.gg/XZ7dpfw


End file.
